Gleba has killed the game for me.

[schorsch_76]

I made it yesterday through gleba science and unlocked most/all new parts including aquilo. I imported nuclear, bots, solar, batteries, LDS, rocket fuel and blue chips from other planets. Enough for 6 rocket starts (ensured by haulers that there is always enough). For iron i first made a space station that delivers infinite iron. With the advanced asteroid processing i also imported infinite copper. whats not needed on the planet is released to space. This way i reduced the pressure on the plants drastically as it just needs to provide stuff for science and some biochambers. Much less spores created. The harvesters and all bio hazard stuff is guarded by guns, lasers and lots of tesla turrets. Thank god i turned biter expansion off in the game start so i could clean a big area around my base that can just absorb the spores.

Overall i am happy that i don`t need go back there (hopefully). What annoys me the most is the graphics. I can`t see on the normal screen where the enemies are. Everything is so cluttered, rainy and sometimes bad distinguishable from each other. Map view is much more useful than the regular view as it abstracts all the distractions away.

[Daid]

[...]
On the spoiler part, I've had enemies stomp trough my base to get to a a farm on the other side. So while they target your farms, they can come from all sides.
[...]

I would be curious to see which kind of layout could possibly have caused this... sounds like a bug (or maybe overproduction ?)

11-09-2024, 11-13-48.png (177.23 KiB) Viewed 1154 times

This is my base, only the encircled in red where farms that point. Most important, the one on the far left was not there yet.

The attack came from the direction of the arrow. This base design might look weird to some. But it's mine. Note that large parts are build on top of swamp, but there is a stone mine below the biggest red circle producing a ton of landfill. And I searched the map for a spot where the two different trees and stone was close together.

[BlueTemplar]

You failed to show the spore clouds though...

What you suggest is that spores were flying alll the way to the other side of your base and far beyound (and in particular, the shortest gradient path being through your base) — I would still mostly blame producing more than you could handle.

And knowing your base was in the way like this, why weren't you extra-careful to not let any rafts settle in in that direction, or at least not for long ?

[Daid]

And knowing your base was in the way like this, why weren't you extra-careful to not let any rafts settle in in that direction, or at least not for long ?

The spore clouds are one blob yellow glow on this area by now. Not sure why that matters. It's not like you can really manage those clouds.

Also, the left wall didn't exist at the time of the attack, I only started on the right wall at that point.

Why wasn't I extra careful? Because I went in blind. I wasn't massively over producing at that point, but I was farming a lot to produce steel for piercing ammo. And had a lot of false starts with the processed fruits spoiling.

My point isn't that this isn't preventable/manageable. The point is, it's unforgiving, unlike the rest of Factorio. If you make too many mistakes on any other planet, you're fine. If you do the same on Gleba, you very likely spiral out of control. I'm not a "plan ahead" type of player, I'm a "build whatever I want right now" type of player, and only Gleba has been a problem for that type of play. Not everyone plays the same way, and that should be fine...

[Raphaello]

What you suggest is that spores were flying alll the way to the other side of your base and far beyound (and in particular, the shortest gradient path being through your base) — I would still mostly blame producing more than you could handle.

And knowing your base was in the way like this, why weren't you extra-careful to not let any rafts settle in in that direction, or at least not for long ?

The first point is correct - enemies on my first visit to Gleba were very easy to handle, I suppose starting area is pretty big. Once I went to Fulgora though, they spread into the cloud and medium stompers killed all turrets at my farms - I fortunately have them away from the base - and base was left without any yumako. That was not so bad yet. I also experienced stompers going to my yumako farm from the other side of the map going in circles in my base and destroying half of it in seconds.

I had to savescum to avoid wasting time and patience on rebuilding my base, went there and saved the day (HERO!!). I have also found out that it's very easy to fight them while being off planet:

remote-driven tanks are almost invulnerable to them and fire takes stompers quickly. Spidertrons are not optimal as they waste majority of their pretty expensive rockets at the small harmless bugs. I hope they will add enemy filtering to spidey's rocket launchers so we can use normal rockets on big buys and explosive ones on small enemies.

Also, am I right thinking that spores are not absorbed by terrain? Or is the absorption rate really low? The cloud gets quite big compared to the size of my base.

[BlueTemplar]

Of course they are (by terrain or possibly trees ??), or they would spread until they reached a raft.

And knowing your base was in the way like this, why weren't you extra-careful to not let any rafts settle in in that direction, or at least not for long ?

The spore clouds are one blob yellow glow on this area by now. Not sure why that matters. It's not like you can really manage those clouds.

What do you mean ? You can manage them : both their location and intensity.

Also, the left wall didn't exist at the time of the attack, I only started on the right wall at that point.

Why would you do that when your base was on the left ?
And I didn't say anything about walls.

Why wasn't I extra careful? Because I went in blind.

Which is fine, but don't complain about being surprised.

I wasn't massively over producing at that point, but I was farming a lot to produce steel for piercing ammo.

The second part of your sentence contradicts the first one. All that (non-stone) infrastructure also looks very expensive. (Heck, even stone mining and processing on that scale might require quite a lot of (bio)power ?)

And had a lot of false starts with the processed fruits spoiling.

How much of them ? Yeah, I had some issues with that too at first, but quickly reined it in after noticing the consequences.

My point isn't that this isn't preventable/manageable. The point is, it's unforgiving, unlike the rest of Factorio. If you make too many mistakes on any other planet, you're fine.

If you do the same on Gleba, you very likely spiral out of control.

No, Nauvis is much worse for this (notably, with finite iron and copper).

I'm not a "plan ahead" type of player, I'm a "build whatever I want right now" type of player

That giant wall and huge, orderly, factory, seem to indicate the opposite ?

[JackTheSpades]

So, another thing I discovered is the fun of deadlocking by accident.
I handfed Nutrients to one of my Biochambers since I had a ton in my inventory after cleaning a belt.
Well, turns out that an inserter was just trying to insert some Nutrients before I filled the Biochamber to the brim, causing the insertion to be delayed... so much so that the Nutrients on the inserter spoiled and the whole system got deadlocked because it couldn't insert Spoilage into the Biochamber.

A bit of a freak accident but sort of goes to show how fragile these spoilage systems can be. There is no way for me to automate removing spoilage from an inserter. The system only broke because I hand-inserted something but that would have never been a problem in any other factory.

[BlueTemplar]

Yeah, but as you say, it only happened because you hand-fed it stuff, so it isn't exactly an automation issue.

(I have a similar issue with my very dumb upcycler design on Fulgora.)

[aka13]

Oh yeah, totally, I also think it's a very bold and interesting move with spoilage introduction, and I am absolutely in agreement with you on that part.
I also absolutely agree, that in comparison to the other challenges, the spoilage is a more unique one.
I probably would not complain at all and simply write this whole thing of as "it is not fun for me" like some people write off trains or beacons, or combinators.

What makes me bitter is the fact that current (probably forever ever now) endgame/pinnacle of gameplay puzzles rotates around "gleba in brown colors + belts only" puzzle, which I find neither engaging, nor interesting, nor fun.

[BlueTemplar]

What about Belt Overflow ?

Causes full belts to overflow at the end.

Imagine combining it with spoilage !

[Danjen]

Yeah, but as you say, it only happened because you hand-fed it stuff, so it isn't exactly an automation issue.

(I have a similar issue with my very dumb upcycler design on Fulgora.)

Evem without interference, its extremely unlikely but possible for an inserter grab something, have it spoil, then fail to replace it. I hope that doesnt happen to me

[BlueTemplar]

You're right, scary thought on big enough factories... is there nothing that can be done by the player to deal wit this ?
(Wait, is this where loaders come in ?)

I was surprised that there doesn't seem a way to read the spoil state of an item with the circuit network, or did I miss it ?

EDIT : Are you sure that in a situation with no manual insertion, the inserter isn't going to put it in the trash slot instead ?

[JackTheSpades]

Well, time for a correction!

I did some testing in a lab setting and as it turns out, all of the relevant Gleba recipes seem to a trash slot(s). This slot is shared with the actual output slot of the machine (e.g. Biochamber).
Inserters will not pick up "trash" items like spoilage but should they happen to already hold some (like if you put the item into the inserter manually) they will insert it into the trash slot of the machine, which again, is the output slot.

If an item has already been crafted and is waiting in the output slot, the system cannot place the trash and as such the inserter will wait for a free slot.

However, the system should, in theory, self clean eventually.
As it will only get stuck if you never remove the intended output item and the item itself does not spoil (like rocket fuel or biochambers). But in this instance there isn't really much of a problem since not removing the output means you have surplus anyway and are clearly not bottlenecked (for this machine anyway).

As soon as the output slot is empty it will place the spoilage (or whatever the designated trash is, like in bacteria production copper/iron are also marked as trash) in the output slot.
And when working with spoilable stuff you generally ALWAYS need to have a dedicated inserter for removing spoilage so at that point the system should unclog.

I honestly have no idea what happened in my factory.
I saw the Biochamber flash the "hunger" symbol requesting Nutrients and my Nutrients inserter was holding spoilage so I assumed that's what happened but my output must have been backed up.

As it stands, I cannot think of a scenario in which the system would truly deadlock as a result of Nutrients or other ingredients spoiling halfway through the insertion.

[nrader]

My three main grievances with Gleba now are:

• You can't turn your factory off.

I think you confusing turning the factory off and letting it stay idle while being turned on.
Because turning it off is quite easy - you just turn off farms and spoilage-to-nutrient production with signals to ensure there is spoilage to restart production again when you turn it on. That's it.

[aka13]

My three main grievances with Gleba now are:

• You can't turn your factory off.

I think you confusing turning the factory off and letting it stay idle while being turned on.
Because turning it off is quite easy - you just turn off farms and spoilage-to-nutrient production with signals to ensure there is spoilage to restart production again when you turn it on. That's it.

That's not entirely true, you also need to turn off the cranes and also check for enough seeds in storage before you turn them off, otherwise you will spiral to no seeds very quickly.
You also need to keep a small egg loop, to keep eggs for kickstarting later.

But both is indeed very doable and a fun circuit challenge.
As I mentioned in the previous threads, if one could signal from the labs somehow, that there is no science demand, it would be a very well-rounded way to play Gleba.

[BlueTemplar]

As in for readying to transport off-planet ?
Because otherwise it's not like labs and biochambers have a big buffer.
Yes, some stuff will spoil, but it will be a trickle unless you get into a «stops working for an hour» time range, and Yumako/Jellynut starts spoiling...
(Which the abovementioned trickle slows down even more by cycling them a bit.)

[Kewne0]

About turning Gleba off: power is a big issue if you try, especially if you have tesla turrets with their 1MW idle power draw. You normally have enough rocket fuel or excess fruit production to easily pay that cost but if you turn that off it gets difficult fast. Would need some pretty big solar/accumulator farms that only matter while the factory is in "off mode", doesn't seem like a good use of your time.

Kind of sucks because it is very easy to lose Gleba while you're stuck building out Aquilo, and you probably have almost nothing useful to show for Gleba being turned on (just some infinite sciences that aren't really worth putting hours of research into unless you intend to megabase after). In my first playthrough we left Gleba "mostly" undefended and simply looked at the map obsessively every ~15 min to take care of enemy expansion via remote tank driving if it happened, which it luckily didn't.

[MisterDoctor]

So far it looks like Gleba is the best new planet so far, posing a real challenge and fun gameplay mechanics while the other planets lack that.

yes

[BlueTemplar]

[...]
while you're stuck building out Aquilo
[...]
In my first playthrough we left Gleba "mostly" undefended and simply looked at the map obsessively every ~15 min to take care of enemy expansion via remote tank driving if it happened, which it luckily didn't.

Hmm, wouldn't

artillery

take care of that in the very late game ?

(Note how Artillery has been in SA effectively moved from very late game to mid-late game compared to 1.1 (and/or non-SA 2.0 ?).)

But perhaps even vanilla (SA), now that it has two planets with enemies that expand, would benefit from some kind of radar improvement that alerts you about new spawners ?

See also :
Configurable Alerts
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=23242

[Apthorpe]

The spore clouds are one blob yellow glow on this area by now. Not sure why that matters. It's not like you can really manage those clouds.

I think the way to manage those clouds is to lower your fruit production. Originally I was under the misapprehension that nutrient production was what attracted the pentapods, but nope, it's the harvesting of the fruit itself.